Screwing Up
by NeuroticMuse413
Summary: A psychology experiment on dreams accidentally lands Edward in bed with his enemy’s best friend. Trapped between hate and desire, frustration and relief, he and Bella must now find a way to beg forgiveness for ever falling in love. AU, AH, rated M.
1. Welcome to My World

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**SCREWING UP  
**By NeuroticMuse413

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**SUMMARY:** Edward and Jasper are lifelong academic rivals at Forks Academy. A psychology experiment on dreams accidentally lands Edward in bed with his enemy's best friend. Trapped between hate and desire, frustration and relief, he and Bella must now find a way to hide or beg forgiveness for ever falling in love.

**WARNINGS:** AU, AH. OOC. E/B POVs, Mature Language, Drug Abuse, Underage Drinking, Sexual Situations… General M-rated goodness. Minimal fluff. No Jacob, cutting, rape, or teen pregnancy. Just Freud vs. Jung.

**A/N:** _For those not in the United States, AP stands for Advanced Placement courses and they're classes you take for free in high school so you don't have to take them in college. They're extremely difficult for that reason. I'm also open to any suggestions on how to improve the story so comment away. Enjoy! _

_Many thanks to Jeny for beta-ing!_

**Soundtrack:  
**_Bella – Unsatisfied _by Nine Black Alps  
Edward – _I've Just Seen a Face _by The Beatles

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**BELLA**

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I waited for Jasper on my porch as I did every morning, with a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He was late as usual but since he somehow managed to get us to class on time no matter when we left my house, I didn't really worry about it. I was still running on Phoenix time, which meant 30 minutes of traffic just to cross two blocks, but Forks was different. Or rather, _I_ was different and everyone in Forks was the same.

Boring, annoying, or rich.

Jasper and I were the only ones who didn't live at the academy, the only ones who didn't have butlers or private security squads or diplomatic immunity. Some genius decided to build Forks Academy in the middle of nowhere so parents who could afford it could send their kids as far away as possible. But, to build it in the rainiest place in the continental U.S. was just cruel. To top it off, I was the police chief's daughter so of course that meant I was only ever seen as either a narc or one of the scholarship charity cases. I obviously preferred the latter, which was true. Luckily, I had a 4.5 weighted GPA and perfect attendance so I fit in perfectly with the other scholarship nerds and rarely had to worry about my spot at the academy.

If it wasn't for Jasper, I think I would have gone insane months ago. I met him for the first time when I was three. My parents had just divorced and I was spending the summer with Charlie. The Whitlocks were friends of the family and that was it. Automatically, we were friends too. Things are simple when you're three. Every summer, I visited and every week we sent letters, talked on the phone, and eventually e-mailed, IMed, and texted. Our relationship evolved with technology until last year when… well, I don't talk about it. Ever. All that matters is that I'm here now and I'm trying to be happy and forget everything. It just feels like something's missing and the days keep getting slower and slower. And I worry it's me that's gone insane.

Things would be different soon enough though. Charlie was remarrying and moving down to Seattle with his new wife so I got two choices: Move into the school or move in with Jazz. No offense to Forks Academy but it and its ridiculous curfew can kiss my ass. I'm moving in with Jazz. I think I've been packed for three months, just waiting for the day when Charlie finally leaves.

In the meantime, I'm surviving. The academy is run on very few, very explicit rules of social conduct. 1) Don't look anyone in the eye. You might get spit on. 2) Don't wear bright colors, raise your hand in class, or draw attention to yourself in any way. And 3) Edward Cullen is your enemy.

Actually, I've never met Edward Cullen, at least not personally. I just happily adopted the rules from Jazz. Those two had this macho thing going on for years and apparently, Edward always won. He was rich and handsome and blah blah blah. I didn't care. If it were up to me, they'd just whip them out on the table, measure, and move on. From what I've seen of Jasper, he'd probably win anyway but these goddamn nerds had to make it about smarts. And nobody was more talented than Goody-Two-Shoes Edward, especially with his tongue or so was the gospel according to Lauren Mallory.

Just to be clear, because we keep getting asked and it's fucking embarrassing, Jasper and I have never and will _never_ be a couple. We tried it one summer three years ago but it didn't exactly go well. Okay, so I freaked out and vomited when he tried to kiss me. I was drunk. Give me a break. It's not that he isn't good looking. It just felt like I was kissing my brother. Yes, a brother. That's what he is. A very tall, blond, blue-eyed, extremely ticklish brother with very strange taste in furniture. His house – his whole fucking house – looks like Lincoln could have been born in the guest room. It was made of wood like some kind of fancy Civil War cabin with three floors and a cute little bell tower. Who the hell has a bell tower? Someone from Forks! Because crazy, random shit like that was the norm. What I wouldn't kill for bland, monochromatic little apartments in the city right now, even eau du cat pee in the nearby alleys.

Actually, I'd kill for a lot of things, and they were all located 200 miles away in every direction from Forks.

Ten minutes had passed since I'd stepped outside to wait and Jazz's '03 Nissan was only now gliding into my driveway. I jumped to my feet and ran through the rain to the passenger's seat, leaving my empty coffee cup on the front steps. He'd bitch at me about getting his upholstery wet but when _didn't_ he bitch. If it wasn't the rain, it was the mud or Edward or the fact that Alice Cullen hadn't looked at him today. Oh yea. The idiot had to go and fall in love with his enemy's twin sister but that's a story all its own and I don't have the patience for it because he refuses to admit he's obsessed with her.

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, our goodbye and hello, and reached over to shut off the air conditioning. I was wet, freezing, and terminally grouchy. I didn't need pneumonia too. He saw the book in my lap and instantly scoffed.

"_Wuthering Heights_?" he said. "Seriously? Again? Does the term broken record mean anything to you? Why didn't you read those _Harry Potter_ books I gave you?"

"Because I'm not a delusional fifteen-year-old who dresses up in Quidditch gear for Halloween and goes 'flying' on his magic broom around the neighborhood," I replied, teasing.

He turned to me – not the smartest thing to do in a moving vehicle but I kept my mouth shut – and sneered. "That was one time and I was high! Besides, I'm just trying to catch you up. You're about a century behind on your books since you insist on reading every single one in existence from the freakin' beginning. I'm hoping you'll run out of them eventually and pick up a good, smutty Harlequin thing like Lauren and Jessica and all the other—"

"Whores?" I finished for him.

He pursed his lips and nodded, conceding my point. "Fine. I'm sorry for trying to make your life a little easier."

I shrugged. "Look, bro. I don't mind getting teased about my books. It draws attention from the slightly more obvious flaws, like my general lack of funds and attention to personal appearance."

He groaned like he was about to tell me something I wasn't going to like. "You know…" he began and I slid down in my seat, turning the radio on low. "It wouldn't hurt you to put on a little make-up or something. You're so fucking pale. A little sun, little make-up, and you'd be a knock-out, Bell."

I rolled my eyes and returned to my book. Heathcliff was about to do something surly and sexy. So I preferred emotional porn. Sue me.

The rest of the ride was comfortably silent. We pulled up to the black gates of the academy and Jasper had to lean out the window to punch in some numbers to be able to get inside. Few of the kids had cars simply because they weren't needed so parking was easy. They could just call for a driver. I don't even think they knew _how_ to drive, except for the Cullens with their Porsches and Volvos and Aston Martins. Their family lived in Port Angeles and they were so fucking cheery that they actually went out together when it stopped raining. Jazz and I just went into the backyard and tossed around a baseball. He said it was his mission in life to improve my hand-eye coordination. _I hope it's a long life, buddy, 'cause it ain't happening. _

I saw the Volvo in the distance through the rain and fog. It just looked so fucking shiny and new and, even though it was totally irrational because we'd never so much as looked at each other, I got why Jasper hated Edward. He was overall _good_. And it made me feel dirty just to look at him, like I was stealing a piece of his soul and betraying my brother at the same time. I watched him hold the umbrella over his sister's head and saunter into the building. Jazz didn't do things like that for me, the sweet everyday things. He used to but after that spit show last time he tried to kiss me, he's never really let himself get very physically close, except for noogies.

Today, he must have seen the way I followed Edward and Alice with my eyes because he draped his arm across my shoulders as we walked into the school. I liked it. I especially liked not having to say a word. He just knew how I felt. Always. It's why I trusted him when he said Edward was the enemy, no matter how much I secretly longed him not to be. I just didn't like having enemies, I told myself. It wasn't good karma.

We had the first class together, all of us. AP English Lit, my favorite. We never studied anything I hadn't read a half-dozen times and so I'd developed a sort of formula for the perfect essay or book report in my head and just filled in the plot information in all the right spots. Simple substitution. I never got anything below an A- and that was because I had a hangover the day I took the midterm essay exam. Yea, I was pretty smug about it to Jazz but I honestly didn't have anything else to be smug about or anyone else to share it with so he let me get away with it. That was the kind of brotherly shit I got from him. It was worth all the jerky comments in-between.

It was a strange day, memorable for a series of reasons but firstly because I was called upon. I did what I usually do. I kept my head and hands down, wore a simply blue sweater and one of Charlie's old plaid shirts over, nothing ostentatious. So, why I was being called on? I looked around but the teacher had said Bella Swan in perfect English. I cursed inwardly and, with a heavy sigh, answered, "Byronic hero."

It was the wrong answer. I knew it was the wrong answer. The whole class knew it was the wrong answer. And, worse, the teacher knew I had purposely lied but just shook his head in disappointment and asked someone else. I shot a small look at Jazz who smiled reassuringly as though telling me, "Don't worry. It'll be over soon." But it wasn't. It was just getting longer. I turned back to the front of the class and found Edward Cullen staring back over his shoulder, his brow furrowed. I finally got to see his eyes, even if it was just a glimpse. They were green like a beer bottle held up to the sun, obvious and stunning even from across the room.

I gulped and my head was down again, staring though not reading my textbook. I never checked if he continued to look. If I didn't look back, it wasn't real and I wasn't betraying Jazz. Still, I thought of those green eyes all day. They were there again in Biology and in Spanish where Jazz could not follow and I didn't have to feel guilty for looking back. But I still didn't, couldn't, because I knew it was a betrayal and the look didn't mean what I thought it did. He couldn't be… curious, could he?

I met Jazz for lunch and we sat down at our usual table with Lauren, Jessica, Ben, Angela, and Eric. Tyler wasn't a scholarship nerd but he wasn't smart either so he didn't get that he wasn't supposed to hang around us. I know he had a silly crush on me and that Jazz had made it very clear to him that I wasn't interested behind the drama room when I first started. He just mostly stared now. It was kind of creepy but after the bruise he had on his arm, ribs, and jaw the month after "talking" to Jazz, I knew he had learned to look and not touch.

I often wondered how many others he had scared away because no other boys looked at me. Except that day of course and those green eyes. I literally slapped myself in the bathroom after lunch, staring at myself in the mirror. Did I have something on my face? Did I do something wrong? Did he know I was looking at him this morning from the car? That was impossible of course. They had been too far away to notice little me through all that rain.

I washed my face again to wake me up. I had AP Psychology next. He was in that class too. Ugh. Four out of six classes with Cullen? How had I never noticed this? That's what I get for keeping my head down. I missed those eyes and the way they scanned me so thoroughly, so quickly, as though afraid of the same sort of shame I felt about betraying my makeshift family.

Then, the moment I entered my psych class, I understood why.

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**EDWARD**

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A bolt of lightning woke me that morning, which was strange. I grew used to Forks' weather fourteen years ago. It took me a few moments to realize it was only drizzling outside. The lightning had been in my dreams, a sort of imaginary pain that occurred when my conscious and unconscious minds collided. And, for a second following that pain, there was _her_ face again.

I rubbed my temple and pulled off my sheets, feeling around my bedside table for the lamp string. The light burned my eyes and there she was again, smiling at me. I groaned, rubbed harder, and called at nothing, "Alice? You up?"

There wasn't a single rustle in the distance, only the subtle pop of raindrops breaking on my windowsill. Her bed was made and her bag was gone. She never went anywhere without that thing. I cursed softly, too tired to deal with this imaginary mess on my own, and went searching for my pants and my keys. I didn't bother changing anything else. By the time I got back, it'd be time for class so I'd grown used to going to sleep in my normal school shirts. It saved time when I had to go rescue Alice.

It'd started when we were little. At first, we all thought she was sleepwalking but she was lucid and remembered everything the next morning, the places she'd walked to and the little things she'd find on the path along the way. She just liked to walk. At 2 a.m. Yes, exactly like a crazy person.

It didn't happen every night, only when she couldn't sleep which was about once a week. We had to sign some paper saying the school wasn't responsible if she got kidnapped or killed walking around. That was always the general worry. I knew better. When she was seven, I got her this large bag full of pepper spray and large metal clubs and my friend Emmett threw in some brass knuckles. When she was ten, we put her in some jujitsu classes. I felt pretty bad for anyone who got in her way actually.

So, when I slipped into my car and turned on the windshield wipers, I was in absolutely no hurry to gather her back. I was letting her do her thing. She let me do _my_ thing after all. It was only fair. I didn't start the car all the way quite yet. I rested the seat back and kept a close watch on the clock on the dashboard. If she wasn't back by 6:30, I'd ride out in search. In the meantime, I pressed play on the CD player and Clair de Lune began to sound all around me. I sighed and rested my hands back behind my head like a pillow.

I unwillingly shut my eyes and the keys on my piano came to life inside my head. I hummed along, a slow smirk spreading across my lips, until suddenly there was her face again. My eyes snapped open and I sat up as though waking from a nightmare. I knew I hadn't been asleep and it could only mean one thing. She was escaping my unconscious in search of me, in search of _more_ of me.

It began the first week she arrived. She was just a girl sitting next to Jasper the Witless in English, this new girl with large, chocolate eyes and a bright smile. She seemed so relaxed, leaning forward onto the desk as she shared some story with him. She had a long face and large lips, which took most of my attention during class. I wasn't the only one. Everyone seemed to be staring at her, this enigma that had suddenly walked into our lives, a new bit of gossip to delve into before we grew tired and ejected her from our minds. I knew if I wanted, I could call my father's "investigators" and have her entire history in my lap in thirty minutes but I chose to come up with my own story because I knew the truth would only disappoint me. I'd been disappointed too many times before.

Was she an heiress trying to escape her evil uncle? Had she had an affair with a prince and was hiding out from his Romanian fiancée? God, I hoped not. I imagined her living some simple life in the mountains. I know. It was very _Sound of Music_ but if I intended her to be mine – something I didn't realize until long after the dreams started – I preferred to think of her as someone approachable and normal, not one of these high society girls I grew bored of after an hour.

The first dream had been her and me on a couch in a house, probably somewhere I'd seen in a movie or on TV. We were randomly eating mangos and laughing about how sticky we were getting. Then, with the same infectious laugh I heard in class earlier that day, she leaned in and kissed me. Then, Jasper walked in and pulled her away, out the door by her hair. I had never really dreamt of Jasper before that. Now, he was always there, in the shadows, pulling her away from me.

My nemesis incarnate. Don't ask how it began because I honestly don't know. Maybe he threw sand on me on the playground in kindergarten. Maybe he pushed me off the swings in fifth. Maybe _I_ started it. It didn't matter. The list of indiscretions that followed that first spark – everything from contests I wanted to win to girls I wanted to date to snitching on me – was long enough to properly call him my enemy, my competition, my rival… Evil.

It had been a subtle hatred but now that he stood directly in my way, I had no choice but to declare war. It was either war or forget her and my dreams weren't letting me. It was useless. For months, I looked for a solution, for a moment when she'd be away from him but he was always there. When he wasn't, she sat on the other side of the classroom with her scholarship people who kept an eye out for her constantly.

So, I gave up glorifying her in my head. I didn't know this girl. All I knew was the sweet girl I dreamt about, the girl I shared a strange fantasy with. I didn't know Bella Swan. I didn't want Bella Swan. I wanted the creature in my head who shared her face. And I knew once I had her, the fantasy would go away and I'd be left with the bitter reality, a reality that I knew could never measure up.

I let her go. I let her go seven _months_ ago. I stripped away the dreams with pills and sleeplessness until finally, she gave up trying to find me. It wasn't until recently that I realized she had never gone. She was always there in that collision in my head when I woke up. Her name was on my lips without my consent and her face was in the corner of my eye every day at school. It was cruel, like she was taunting me.

And so, I had grown to hate her.

I hated her for stripping me of the best dreams of my life. I hated her for making it hard to notice anyone else. I hated her for the way she smiled and laughed and then… she stopped all that.

She blended into the background with the others. She stopped raising her hand in class, even speaking. I hadn't heard her voice in what felt like forever. Even my sensitive ears couldn't fathom what she sounded like anymore. Was she sad? Had Jasper hurt her?

It soon became evident that he merely hid her away in his obscure world with the other scholarship people. He was stripping her of her light, and it was making it even easier to hate her because she _let_ him. In my mind, she was in love with him. Why else would she let him hide her away from the world like that? Why would he protect her the way I longed to? I felt like she – the dream, I mean – had left me for the enemy. Of course they had to be in love. He was her prince and I was the Romanian fiancée.

I pondered all the times he got to kiss her and touch her and hold her when I wasn't looking, when I was sitting in my dorm dreaming about her like an idiot. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was only 6:10 but I didn't care. I needed to talk to Alice, my only true confidant. I turned on the engine and sped out the black gates onto Burke Road. It led all the way out of Forks into Port Angeles and it was also Alice's favorite walking route because it was framed in trees on both sides. No people anywhere. I drove a little faster than I normally should on a rainy day but it still wasn't storming the way it usually did around this time.

I saw her in the distance, walking back. She wore black leggings and flats under a jaunty yellow dress. She held a matching black and yellow umbrella so she looked like a tiny biohazard sign in the distance. I scoffed and slowed down, coming up beside her. She smiled at me and got inside, tossing the wet umbrella into the back seat.

"Hey you. It isn't 6:30 yet," she said softly, staring at the radio like it was the most interesting thing in the world. She had to have temporary ADD or something because when she came back from her walks, her mind was still off. I knew what she thought about. Our parents, me, classes, her friends… a million different things all at once. She never had to tell me for me to know. I could read her like a book. I could read everyone.

"I know," I answered, my eyes begging a reprieve just for today. "I saw her again."

Alice's bright green eyes snapped to me. "Excuse me? In a dream, right?"

I shook my head and she reached over to my hand on my lap. I did a highly illegal U-turn back towards the school and pulled over on the side of the road. She shut off the windshield wipers and I shut off the light on the dash and suddenly, the rain cloaked us in darkness. We didn't like to talk with the lights on. It was easier to pretend we were one person in the dark, just extensions of ourselves.

"I wasn't asleep. I was in the car, listening to music, and there she was. In my head. Smiling. I'm seeing her in real life, Al. I'm seeing her everywhere."

Alice groaned. "Edward, it's been months! You've never even talked to her! Why can't you just forget it?"

"Because she's with _him_!" I shouted back.

Alice's face turned somber. I could tell even in the darkness of early morning. She jerked ever so slightly whenever I mentioned Jasper and I always wondered why. She'd never voiced her opinion on our rivalry. As far as I knew, she was indifferent, seeing it all as some childish game. Hell, it probably was.

"Edward, who do you think you're talking to?" she answered after a moment of silence. Her voice was eerily calm after her walks. She was clear-headed now, good for advice. I never really _took_ her advice but she was always the good angel sitting on my shoulder. You can guess the devil on my other.

"Alice, I'm not lying. That's the only reason."

She scoffed. "Yea, sure, and I'll be trying out for the Globetrotters next year. Give it a break, Edward. Just talk to her."

"You know that's impossible. We don't—"

"Psychology."

I snapped up and turned on the light on the roof of the car. "What?"

"She has psychology with us, right?" I nodded. "Guess what today is."

I shrugged. "Electroshock therapy demonstration day? Please tell me you're volunteering."

She ignored my joke as she usually did. She knew I knew she wasn't crazy. "Today we get assigned our final paper assignments, right? I happen to know that she doesn't have a partner."

That was hardly consequential. She could be teamed up with—nobody. Alice was right. The more I thought about the layout of the room, the people in it, the more I saw what she meant. I had taken Psych 1 last year and it was the same people. It had been an uneven class and I'd elected to do the paper alone. After all, I hated having to repeat the entire lecture back to my partners every time I got an assignment. Mr. Adler would surely assign the same people together. He always did.

"She doesn't have a partner," I echoed in a whisper.

"She doesn't have a partner," laughed Alice. "See? This is why I walk. You should try it. Plotting becomes so much easier."

I shot her a look because she knew I'd never venture into her thing just as she'd never venture into mine. Our parents had tried to force her to take lessons when she was younger but she didn't have the ear for music, apparently. I was always suspicious about that because her music collection sometimes rivaled my own. I think she just knew how much I cared for it and let me have it. That was my thing.

"Just…" she began, a warning evidently about to escape her lips. "Be careful. She comes with issues."

My eyes shot wide and I dropped my hand from the keys. I waited for her to elaborate but I knew she wasn't going to. What did she know that I didn't? Probably everything since I went out of my way to avoid hearing about Bella's real life. I decided to put her warning in the back of my mind for safekeeping and started back towards the school.

When we arrived, I got Alice's umbrella and hurried to open her door for her. She must have been freezing in the little dress but she was even more used to the weather than I was. She'd developed a tolerance with all her walks. I developed a tolerance for leaky basements. Hers was a tad more useful.

I heard a car run through a large puddle in the distance, saw it in the corner of my eye as we reached the stairs into the academy. It was a small and old and deep blue but very well cared for. Jasper. Of course. I brought Alice closer to me and rushed us inside, running away from Bella who certainly sat in the front seat. Alice looked up at me disapprovingly and I set her down. I hadn't realized I had lifted her up by her waist on the stairs.

"You pussy," she told me, crudely.

I pretended to be offended as I pushed the elevator button. "Who have you been hanging out with that speaks that way?"

"Why? You going to put a tag on them and send them into the wild to observe them in their natural habitats?" she mocked.

I raised an eyebrow, juggling the keys in my hands. "I don't sound like that, do I?" I asked honestly. I couldn't very well talk to Bella sounding like the creepy background voice on all those sex ed animal videos.

She just shrugged and stole the keys from me, opening up our dorm room. "Do you sound like Dad, you mean? Yah. Totally."

We didn't turn on the lights. We didn't need them to know our way around. I wasn't planning on switching my shirt but Alice shoved one of my hangers from the closet into my chest, a silent command to put it on. I went to complain when she shoved a pair of my nicer dark jeans at me too. "You look like crap. Hung over crap and you don't even drink. I want you nice when you talk to her the first time and her favorite color's blue so put 'em on."

"No no no!" I hissed. "Don't tell me her favorites! I want _her_ to tell me that!"

Alice rolled her eyes and hurried off to class so I could change in peace, muttering something about hopeless romantic idiots under her breath. She knew I'd put them on because she was never wrong when it came to my wardrobe. I rushed down and was fifteen minutes early to our English class just so I could see her walk in, Jasper the Witless hanging off her as usual. I had no shame today. I looked. I looked her over like she was something to eat and basked in the sight. Even dressed like a bag lady, those big red lips called me in.

I must have looked too much because I noticed the teacher had stopped talking and was glaring at me with a raised eyebrow. He followed my line of sight to Bella and called on her. He _never_ called on her, on barely any of the scholarship kids. They just sort of blended into the walls, except during test time when they creamed the others. She gave a wrong answer but I could tell by her hesitation that she had lied. She knew that answer. She just didn't want to be called upon again, to keep the facade that she was nothing special. I felt horrible for drawing unwanted attention her way and furrowed my brow.

Then, for just a moment, her deep chocolate eyes met mine and I didn't know how to react. I froze, looking back over my shoulders like some creepy hunchback and she was my Esmeralda. I realized Jasper was sitting right next to her and turned back around. I couldn't risk getting caught and I had three more classes with her, sans Jasper.

I couldn't help myself. I stared through all three classes, as surreptitiously as I could. Alice had to slap me at lunch, in plain sight of the whole school, to get me to stop. It didn't work but it was a nice gesture nonetheless. We got to psychology and I was sweating so much that I thought my body was going to slide out of the chair. She hadn't arrived. Why the hell hadn't she arrived yet?!

I fumbled with my hands as the others started sitting with their pairs. I drew an empty desk closer to me in the back. I didn't want to get stared at when I talked to her. I liked the darkness back there too, away from the large windows. Forks Academy hadn't made the transition to light bulbs very efficiently and I was at home in the darkness. I needed all the help I could get if I was going to stop my heart from jumping out my throat. Bloody vomit wasn't going to make a very good first impression after all.

When she finally came in, I realized she had no idea the teacher would be assigning us together. She went up to Mr. Adler and whispered something, seemingly asking what was going on. He realized she didn't have a partner. I could tell from his face and the way he scanned the room for a free seat. I straightened up and his eyes met mine. He gestured for Bella to follow him and led her to my desk and the empty seat beside me.

"Mr. Cullen, Bella here is new this year and doesn't have a partner. I know you prefer working alone so I won't force you together. Would you mind?" he said, very diplomatically. He knew from the way we avoided looking at each other that it had a potential for disaster written all over it.

I opened my mouth to speak but found no words there, as though I were keeping all words just for her. So, I nodded like the grouchy idiot I was and leaned back in my chair trying to play it cool. Play it cool? What was she turning me into that I had to play at nonchalance?

"Oh good," the teacher said, visibly relieved, handing us a paper with all the instructions. "I'm going to give you the dream assignment then. You're both to keep journals of your dreams and analyze them. Bella, you be Jung. Edward, you be Freud, and analyze them accordingly. Got it?"

Bella and I nodded in sync. She didn't seem to want to speak about it either. As the teacher began to walk about, Bella called out, "Professor, wait!"

My heart sputtered. I thought for sure she was going to tell him she changed her mind and would rather do it alone. I was close.

Mr. Adler turned around. "Yes, Ms. Swan?"

"I don't understand. If we're just analyzing our own dreams, why do we need a partner?"

_Who cares_, I thought, though I just wanted an excuse to talk to her.

He came back toward us and pointed at page two of the paper. I hadn't read it myself. "You're required to spend a week at the dream lab here at the school and record each other's sleeping patterns and brain waves. Then, compare them to the subject matter and nature of your dreams."

"Ah," she said, no emotion in her voice though her cheeks were turning a rosy shade. Damn it, I'd kill to be able to read her like everyone else but she was new to me. I kept fighting with myself to read her the way I read Dream Bella and remembering quickly that this was a different person altogether. For one, Real Bella seemed horribly disinterested in… well, life. I couldn't even get her to look at me, no matter how much I stared.

With a heavy sigh, she scooted her chair closer to me and I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my feet. I gulped and waited for her to speak. I was dying to be able to hear that voice again.

"Uh, hi, I'm Bella Swan," she said.

I laughed dryly. _No shit._

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_I know it doesn't sound like much yet but hang in there. Lots of questions coming, like who Alice has been getting her info from and why the boys are _really _mad at each other. More chapters now up! _

Alerts are nice. **Reviews are love. **


	2. Story No Longer Online

**SPECIAL NOTICE! SPECIAL NOTICE!  
**(Last time I'll be abusing my Author Note privileges for this story so PAY ATTENTION!)

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Though I have received quite a few email complaints, the entire story is **no longer** available online. The original novel it was based on, _How to Lose Yourself in One Year or Less_, is now available in print and, though completely different, I've been advised not to post _Screwing Up_ online anymore. Don't worry, I'll be writing up new things for you soon enough. I've kept the first chapter up because I just can't part with all those reviews. I'll get over it eventually, but thank you all for reading and for your kind support.

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_Much love to you all,  
_G. Padron.


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